Elysium
by sydney gray
Summary: Samantha deals with the aftermath of FO2 and the future . . . M/S, mentions of J/S. Chapter 5 now up! Please R&R.
1. 1

Elysium. Chapter One  
  
Before.  
  
She wasn't going to have much mobility in her leg. That's what the doctors had told her, but she had tuned them out, gazing out of the window to the city outside. The rain fell steadily, echoing her tears from the night before. How weak she had been, how unsteady, how foolish.  
  
And yet . . . he had been there. By her side. All night long. They hadn't spoken, she functioning under the pretense of sleep, but she could smell his familiar after shave, sense his presence as soon as he walked into the room. First him, then Danny, then Vivian.  
  
No Jack. She didn't think Jack would be showing up at all. Not any more.  
  
Samantha Spade had always thought she was strong-- invincible, even. How things had changed, so quickly, so soon. All it took was a gun in her face, a bullet in her leg, the prospect of losing her own life. I could have lost so much, she thought. So much.  
  
Martin had come right after Barry Mashburn had been arrested, and he looked tired and worn and haggard. She had peeked at him, peering out from underneath her eyelashes. He had fallen asleep in the chair by the bed, still in his work clothes. He looked so young in his sleep, so innocent. She wondered if he had been afraid for her when she was in the building.  
  
When morning came, she shut her eyes to the dull morning light, not sunlight, just daylight. Martin wasn't in the room any more. She had surprised herself with thoughts about him. Things changed so quickly, just in that one night. Everything had come crashing down on her, giving her immense and total perspective. They had been so stupid, she and Jack. Their affair had almost cost them everything-- their careers, their dignities. And then there was Jack's marriage.  
  
She couldn't pretend she didn't feel for him, didn't love him in her own way. But he had never been hers. He had always belonged to his wife, in heart if not in body. There wasn't much romance in whispers and glances. She had thought at first that there was, but Jack was a lonely man, and she was a lonely woman. She understood his pain and he helped her heal her own wounds.  
  
She had turned down a lot of very good offers because she was sitting around waiting for a man who would never love her. And in one night, in the flash of gun powder, the pounding of shots in her ears, she realized that she didn't love him, either, not in the way she thought she did.  
  
And Martin . . . She didn't know what to think any more. She blamed her fogginess on the meds, on the pain she still felt in her leg. He was her friend. He had made an offer once, asked her out, and she had asked him for a rain check. He hadn't asked again after that. She had been okay with that.  
  
And then outside, right before they had put her into the ambulance, she had been unable to stop her tears, and Martin had looked at her with such tenderness, and he had put his hand on her forehead, so gentle, so caring. Was it unfair of her to want him to hold her? Had she really just been blind? Or ignoring what was so plainly right in front of her?  
  
When she finally opened her eyes, prepared to face the world again, a world where people got shot, and people got divorced, and people died, and people lied under oath, and careers got ruined, she saw the two bouquets of flowers on the stand in front of her bed. One was from Danny, and the other was from Vivian. These were her friends, and they were her coworkers. Her life didn't allow for the two groups to be mutually exclusive.  
  
Martin was gone. The chair where he had spent the night was empty, and she felt her heart sink-- inexplicably. I don't know how to deal with this, she thought. I don't know what this means. What had she expected? For him to spend the entire night? To wake to the sight of his boyishly handsome face? For him to smile at her and profess his undying love? The thought made her laugh.  
  
Don't mistake gratitude for something else, she told herself, not knowing the meaning of her own thoughts.  
  
After a while, the doctors came in and told her that she wouldn't be able to use her leg for a while, not fully, and they asked her if she wanted to stay in the hospital for a few more days. She shook her head vehemently and told them she was going home. They seemed to know better than to fight with her.  
  
She called Danny, because she didn't know who else to call, and he came to help her, put her in the wheelchair, take her out to the cab, and make sure she got home all right. The surgery made her tired, so exhausted she could barely stand, and Danny helped her into bed, covered her up, and then he left her to her own sleep.  
  
*  
  
Devon Hilshire. Missing: Four hours.  
  
After her six-day paid vacation, Samantha Spade returned to work, refreshed and feeling good. 'Limited mobility' was not going to be something to keep her from doing her job. She was Special Agent Samantha Spade-- and she was going to help people. The hospital gave her a cane and painkillers, and she got in the elevator to head up to the office, feeling a little shaky. There was a nervous, tight feeling in the pit of her stomach. She hadn't seen them-- except for Danny-- for a week; Jack had never called, and Martin never came back.  
  
The latter worried her. Her relationship with Jack was over, dead, finito. She knew that now. She had buried all of it, put it in a safe place. He had risked his life for her, but she felt positive he would have done the same for any other member of the team.  
  
Be cool, Sam, she told herself as the elevator binged to a halt. There was the obligatory pause before the doors whisked open, and she steadied herself. She was . . . nervous, she realized-- nervous about seeing Martin. The thought of him made her antsy, and not in a bad way. She felt like she was in high school again, and her hands started to shake.  
  
You are so silly, her brain hissed at her. You're a grown woman. Hell, you've even had an affair with your boss. This is no problem. Remember-- you had a bullet in your leg only a week ago.  
  
How things changed.  
  
She stepped out of the elevator and walked assuredly into the offices of the Missing Persons Unit of the FBI. She was a professional, and she was here to do her job. Nothing, not her own burgeoning feelings for her coworker was going to change that.  
  
"Sam," she heard, and she recognized the flat-accented voice of Special Agent Jack Malone. She froze, but only for a second. She put on her smile and turned to look at him, pivoting on her cane. She tried to ignore the pain in her leg, supporting herself on the piece of wood the hospital had given her. "I didn't realize you'd be coming back so soon," he said to her, and he smiled a thin-lipped smile at her.  
  
"Well, I have a job to do," she told him, smiling.  
  
"And you're feeling okay? You're up to it?"  
  
"Just as long as I'm not the go-to girl for another money pick-up situation, I'm good to go," she joked, hoping that as long as she stayed positive about the situation, everyone else would, too.  
  
"Okay, good," he replied, watching her carefully, those scrutinizing brown eyes focused on her, alert, ready for her every sign, her every move. She wasn't going to give him any clues, not any more.  
  
"Let's go. We got anything?" she asked him, and he led her into the main area of the office, with its familiar brown table, the individual desks and cubicle-like structures, the ever-present dry-erase boards.  
  
"Devon Hilshire," Jack said, immediately slipping from concerned friend and ex-lover into professional team leader. "Missing: four hours."  
  
"What happened?" Sam asked, grabbing a chair and sliding into it, trying not to grimace as the pain hit her leg.  
  
"Sam--" Jack started, and she tried to cut him off with a look, but he was having none of it. "If you're not up to this, I'm sure we can arrange for some more paid leave."  
  
"I'm fine," she assured him. "I'm fine," she repeated. That was her mantra; the more she told herself that, the more she hoped she could believe it. Sometimes she dreamt about it, saw the bullet flying in slow- motion towards her. How lucky she had been. But she could have done something, she felt sure.  
  
"Okay," Jack replied, but he sounded unconvinced. She didn't blame him. "Here's what's going on."  
  
*  
  
Devon Hilshire Missing: Five hours.  
  
She stared at the face of the young woman whose picture had been tacked onto the dry-erase board. Jack had stuck her on phone duty, information retrieval. Seated at her desk, she could stare at the woman's picture, trying to memorize everything about her, understand her, get inside her head. It was all she could do, sitting at a desk. Jack had gone with Danny to visit Devon's boyfriend, and Martin and Vivian were still at the subway stop where Devon had last been seen.  
  
She had been glad for that. She didn't know if she could handle seeing Martin right away. She had to ease into it. She could almost smell him in the office, his after shave. It was comforting. It reminded her of her injury, of his telling her she had done well. College girl, he had called her. He had smiled at her.  
  
That smile. She found herself thinking about him, unable to stop it. Shaking hands had opened the bottle of pills, and equally shaking hands had delivered her pain relievers into her mouth. She hadn't expected the pain to be so great.  
  
"Hey, college girl," she heard, and at first, she thought she had imagined it. She brushed it aside, and then she realized that he was standing there at the end of the table, watching her. There was a flutter in her chest, a burning in her stomach. It had been a long time since she had felt that way-- about anyone.  
  
"Hi," she replied, smiling at him. She couldn't help the smile that spread across her face like a disease. For a minute, he didn't say anything, just stood there and looked at her. She didn't even know what to say to him, and there was an awkwardness in the air, laden with the unsaid.  
  
What, Sam? her brain demanded. Are you going to tell him you have feelings for him? What then? What if he just says, 'too little, too late'?  
  
Oh, shut up, she told her brain.  
  
She started to stand up, in some way to demonstrate that she was strong, that she could do it, that she had survived the gun shot, survived the whole event, and that she was stronger for it. She was wrong. Her leg screamed out in pain, and she stumbled, grabbing for the table. Martin was there immediately, supporting her, holding her. She felt his arms around her, strong, steady, stable. And then she could smell his aftershave.  
  
He didn't let go of her, even when she half-tried to push him away. He looked at her, his eyes slightly cloudy, his face hazy with concern. "Samantha," he said to her, his voice slightly hoarse. "You shouldn't be here," he told her, and she shook her head, trying to smile.  
  
"I just stumbled a little. It happens to everyone," she tried to explain.  
  
"You're in pain."  
  
"I just took my pills; it'll be okay."  
  
He still held her, one arm on the small of her back, the other supporting her left arm. She marveled, allowing herself to think about the implications for the future, at how comfortable she was in his arms, how well they fit together.  
  
Too little, too late, her brain whined.  
  
"You look pale," he said to her, and he pressed the back of his hand to her forehead.  
  
"I'm fine," she protested again. "Fine." She pulled out of his arms and grabbed for her cane, and once she caught a hold of it, she put all of her weight on it. It had become her lifeline, her security blanket. That's what Jack had been once-- her security blanket. He couldn't be that any more. Once, she had been safe from hurt, because she just kept telling herself that she was involved with Jack. Now that she didn't have that any more, she was on her own, naked to the world.  
  
"Come on," she said. "We have a missing woman to find."  
  
To be continued . . . 


	2. 2

Elysium Chapter Two  
  
Devin Hilshire  
  
Missing: 10 Hours  
  
The coffee was dull and bitter in her mouth, the acidity rolling off of her tongue. She was getting tired of being babied by her peers, her coworkers, her colleagues. The pain was bad, but it wasn't devastating. There was no reason why she couldn't go out into the field, try to help. Jack's patronization was killing her; she was the oldest member of his particular team. Danny teased her, Vivian mothered her, Martin looked like he was going to have her committed. And Jack-- all Jack seemed capable of was condescension.  
  
She was angry. She didn't like being angry. It made everything fuzzy around the edges; it also made her job harder. Not like you have a job right now, her brain muttered at her. She manned the phones, waited for information. The more the case progressed, the less it looked like the woman was in any sort of danger.  
  
She stared at the photograph until it made her eyes hurt, and Danny joined her around the table, just staring at her before he said anything. She took another sip of her coffee, and it was growing cold, the taste nearing sawdust. "If you think I can't read you, you're wrong," Danny said to her.  
  
"I don't know what you're talking about," she replied strongly, afraid of what he was saying to her. Danny was one of her best friends, but she couldn't trust him to keep his mouth shut about anything.  
  
"You don't like being stuck in this office any more than the rest of us would."  
  
She had to smile. Even if he wasn't completely right, he was still right. "I just don't feel like I'm a part of the team."  
  
He narrowed his eyes at her and smiled. "You're still a part of the team. You're just a little . . . unavailable right now. You can't help that."  
  
She paused before answering. "I keep thinking like maybe I should have been able to help that."  
  
"People get shot, Samantha," Danny told her firmly, ever the voice of reason. "It's nobody's fault."  
  
He could say that all he wanted, but she still felt like, somehow, she had been responsible for her own shooting. If it hadn't have been for her, there wouldn't even have been a gun there in the first place. She should have taken him down, shot at him as soon as he went to pick up the bag. But maybe then they never would have found Sidney.  
  
There was a hubbub, the elevator doors opening and closing, and Jack, Martin, and Vivian emerged onto the floor of the office. "We found her," Jack announced, and Danny turned to smile at Sam, perhaps hoping that she would be relieved. And she was-- she always was, naturally. But they had done it without her.  
  
She didn't know why she had felt like the world was supposed to stop on her weeklong vacation. People still went missing, and the Missing Persons Unit still had a job to do-- even if Special Agent Spade was indisposed.  
  
"Was she with the other boyfriend?" Danny asked, his voice ringing clearly through the obvious silence.  
  
"Yeah," Jack answered, but his eyes were focused on Sam. "She was. She ran away. But we recovered her."  
  
Samantha rubbed the bridge of her nose, trying not to look at any of them. If any-- absolutely any-- of them gave her another sorrowful glance, a look of pity, she was going to have to scream. It was just a gunshot! she wanted to yell at them. I'm okay! It was just a bullet!  
  
But she didn't know how true that statement would be.  
  
"Okay, everyone, close up. Enjoy your night off. I'll see you all when the next call comes in," Jack said to everyone, his brown eyes still concentrated on Sam. "And Sam? Can I talk to you?"  
  
Martin's look did not go unnoticed. She wondered how much he knew about her now-defunct relationship with Jack, how much any of them knew, for that matter. She tried to stand, Danny offering her a hand, but she refused it. "I can do this on my own," she told Danny, and the others all watched her. Martin looked like he wanted to come to her rescue, and part of her brain was saying, 'Yes, please', and the other part was indignant, stubborn.  
  
She followed Jack into his office, and he quietly closed the door behind her. That was never a good sign. How many closed door conversations had they had? He sat down behind his desk, and she sat in the chair in front of him. "What is it?" she asked softly. How quickly they fell back into old habits.  
  
"I've gone back to Marie," he told her after a beleaguered pause.  
  
She couldn't even tell him she was surprised, not honestly. She had guessed as much when he hadn't come to see her after the incident. There was nothing like a life-threatening situation to put one's life in perspective. Her own life had been cruelly jarred into perspective; she could only imagine what his had felt like. "Oh," she said quietly.  
  
"I just wanted to let you know. Before you heard it from someone else."  
  
"I appreciate that," she replied, standing up. She started to walk out of the room, leaving their relationship dead and gone, but he stopped her.  
  
"Sam?" She turned back to look at him, trying to smile. "I'm sorry," he said. Too little, too late, her brain whispered, but she knew she had no right.  
  
"It's okay," she told him, hand on the door handle. "Things change."  
  
*  
  
She stepped inside the elevator, shaky and disconcerted. Sometimes the memories were stronger than at other times. Barry Mashburn hadn't been a bad man; he'd been hurt and confused and in pain. She knew what that felt like. She reached out a shaking hand to press a button on the inside of the elevator to bring her down to the parking garage, but someone called to her to stop the elevator.  
  
She recognized the voice immediately-- Martin. She pressed and held the doors open button, waiting for him to board the elevator. He smiled at her as he stepped onto the elevator, and she smiled back, even though she wasn't up to smiling. "How are you feeling?" he asked her, and she shrugged.  
  
"I've had better days," she told him honestly. The elevator doors binged shut, and it was just the two of them in the silence of the confined space.  
  
"It's your prerogative to be in pain," he told her, and neither of them looked at each other.  
  
"Maybe," she replied. "But it's not my prerogative to be useless."  
  
"You're not--" he started, but then he stopped, and she wondered vaguely what it was that he was going to say.  
  
How had she not realized what she felt for him? How had she been so incredibly blind? And now they were friends, just friends. And that was okay with her on some level. She appreciated his friendship. But there was something so much more, right under the surface and deeper. He was so close that she could reach out and touch him, and she wondered what he would do if she were to simply reach to him and pull him to her.  
  
"Hey," he said, turning to look at her. "What's the matter?"  
  
She thought, as he stood there, gazing at her softly, that maybe she could just tell him, just say that she was having feelings of the not-so-friendly variety. And then he would say that he reciprocated and that he had been so incredibly worried about her when she had been inside that building, so afraid that he might lose her. And then she would say that the feeling was mutual and they would kiss and see where things went after that.  
  
"Is it Jack?" he asked.  
  
She had to laugh, and she shook her head. "No," she told him as the elevator stopped. "It's not Jack." She smiled and stepped out of the elevator. He followed her, and she turned to look at him.  
  
"Do you want to-- go grab drinks or something?" she asked him. In the dim lights of the parking garage, he looked tired, weary, exhausted.  
  
Something in his eyes flickered. The scene felt oddly reminiscent to her; the feeling in the pit of her stomach returned. So much for the feelings being reciprocated, her brain hissed at her.  
  
"I-- I've got plans," he told her, and her heart plummeted.  
  
"Oh, okay," she murmured.  
  
"Some other time?" he asked, sounding like her, sounding the same way she had sounded when he had asked her for drinks. And there hadn't been some other time.  
  
"Sure," she told him, and she turned to leave.  
  
"Sam?" he asked, and she turned back, her heart hoping against hope.  
  
"You okay?" he asked her, his eyes soft, his voice softer. "If you-- if you need anything at all, just call me."  
  
"I'm fine," she told him tightly, and then she turned back and walked away from him.  
  
*  
  
Samantha stared at the piece of paper on her kitchen table again. It seemed unreal, jarring to her sense of reality. A single piece of paper, words written on it. She had seen it when she had come into her apartment, and she had read it, but she was only now beginning to digest it. She had been FBI for a long time, and no one had bothered to tell her that no matter what, no matter how much training she may have gotten, no matter how many cases she may have experienced, nothing could prepare her for the time when things started happening to her.  
  
She poured herself a glass of wine and sat down at the table, setting the glass down next to the piece of paper. Everything she knew, everything she had learned, told her not to touch it, not even to look at it. She should call the authorities, she thought, call someone, do something.  
  
She was numb. She didn't know what to do or who to call.  
  
It was just a piece of paper, unthreatening in its own right. She had heard of this happening-- a big case goes down, pictures plastered all over the paper, nuts come out of the woodwork. It had just never happened to her.  
  
It had been inside her apartment, too. Somehow, whoever had written the note had gotten inside her apartment. She had inspected the place immediately, walked over every square inch, her firearm ready, but there was no sign or forced entry, and there was certainly no one in her apartment still.  
  
'Samantha Spade,' the paper said, 'I'm coming for you.'  
  
Finally, she picked up the telephone to dial someone's number. She didn't know whose, just as long as it was someone's. Her first thought was Martin; he had told her to call if she needed anything, but she didn't think this was quite what he had in mind. And he had a date.  
  
It didn't matter, she decided. Martin was it.  
  
She dialed his number and waited for him to pick up. She didn't even know what she would say, but she had a feeling it would begin in tears. She needed a place to stay, someone to stay with. And then she had to go to the police and report the note. She hadn't moved it, just let it sit there smugly on her kitchen table. The phone rang, once, twice, three times. And then his answering machine picked up.  
  
Danny was the next person to call. She had no friends, only coworkers, but they would have to suffice. And if Danny failed, Eric would be the next person on the list. And then Jack. The phone rang, once, twice, and her heart started to sink.  
  
Then there was a click. "Hello?" she heard.  
  
"Danny?" she said, exhaling in relief.  
  
"Samantha?" he responded. "What's wrong?"  
  
"I need a place to stay," she told him. "I need your help."  
  
To be continued . . . 


	3. 3

Author's Note: Thankyou thankyou thankyou for the lovely, overwhelmingly warm comments! That's the stuff that keeps me writing, and I'm so happy everyone has enjoyed this story so much. I just wanted to see some more M/S fiction on this page. And no fear for the M/S fans out there-- I am DEFINITELY going in that direction. Big things in the future! More feedback always appreciated. :-D ~syd  
  
Elysium  
  
Chapter Three  
  
In the empty darkness of Danny's apartment, Samantha was cold. There was a minimalistic masculinity to the place; Danny never was one for 'stuff'. He was on the phone with the police department, pacing in the kitchen. She watched him, her eyes going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth like the eternal tennis match it was. She was tired, more so than she was going to let on.  
  
How she wished Martin had answered his phone. She had called once again, right before going outside to take the taxi to Danny's apartment, but he still wasn't there. She didn't want to think about where he could be-- and with whom.  
  
She wasn't scared, really, just feeling really violated. And Danny-- Danny was angry. Danny had two kinds of angry-- the loud angry and the quiet angry. At present, he was the quiet angry. She watched him as he fumed into the phone, trying to get information, trying to get a police officer to go over to her apartment. She knew what they were saying on the other end, that they had to take care of the crimes that had been committed before they could attend to the ones that hadn't been committed yet. She couldn't say she blamed them.  
  
Finally, he got off the phone and he sat down on the sofa next to her, and neither of them said anything. Her injured leg was stretched out in front of her, not elevated like it was supposed to be, but she didn't care. Something had changed inside of her since the shooting, and she couldn't put her finger on it. Maybe it was just that she was thinking more, considering all of the options, looking at all of the open doors, not just the one with the plaque that said 'Jack Malone' on it. Maybe that was it, but maybe it was something else, something less tangible.  
  
She wanted to cry. Not because of the note, and not because of Jack, and not even really because of the shooting. She could handle the first; it had happened to Jack a couple of years back, some whack job. She could handle the second; she had always braced herself for the inevitable end. And the third was just physical, primarily psychological.  
  
How many times had she told herself she was too good for tears, too strong, too unbeatable? And then all it took was one bullet in the leg, and she let her guard down, started to let herself feel again. Her relationship with Jack had simply been mind numbingly obvious; they had slipped into that, sliding all around each other and their colleagues, pretending like no one saw the glances, like no one noticed that Jack always paired her with him, just pretending. They had gotten good at pretending.  
  
She had built up the walls way too high, destroyed the woman she once was. It had been okay, because real feelings weren't allowed to enter into the identity known as 'Jack and Sam'. But now that there was no Jack and Sam, now that she was beginning to have incredibly real feelings-- feelings that had always been there, really-- for someone else, someone who didn't know the make-believe game, she didn't know what to do. And that was why she wanted to cry.  
  
Danny reached out and touched her shoulder briefly with his warm fingertips, and she turned and smiled at him, her eyes completely dry. Now was not the time to cry, she decided. Now was the time to be strong, brave, untouchable Samantha Spade. "It's going to be okay, Sam," he told her, that familiar smile playing at the corner of his lips.  
  
"I know," she replied, nodding. He grinned at her, perhaps not sensing the gravity not of the situation but of her thoughts, and she smiled back. She always could smile with Danny, no matter what-- but there was more to life than Danny's somewhat two-dimensional emotions, anger and humor. She knew him better than that, but she also knew that was why she had turned down his date offer two years ago.  
  
"It's okay if I stay here?" she asked him.  
  
"I wasn't going to let you leave," he told her with a wink.  
  
*  
  
Hilary Frederick Missing: 29 Hours  
  
It was a matter of stamina. Samantha felt sure that she could outlast this crush or whatever it was that she felt for Martin. Simply stamina. It was only a matter of living long enough so that the feelings would fade. Everything ended eventually, anyway, she decided. She just had to outlast it. It had been almost a week since she received the note, almost a week of living in Danny's apartment, sleeping in his bed while he slept on the couch. Martin hadn't said anything to her outside of the typical formalities and colloquialisms that inhabited the workplace.  
  
Once upon a time, there had been a small window of opportunity, and she hadn't gotten through it. She had just gotten her leg stuck inside.  
  
She folded the piece of paper at the table into a paper airplane and tossed it into the basket beside the dry erase board. She sat in the chair at the table, her leg up on another chair. She and the chair were now good friends; Jack wouldn't let her do anything, especially go out into the field. That was his paternal nature coming out, and she didn't appreciate it.  
  
As usual, she stared at the picture on the dry erase board. People were beginning to talk about her and Danny, but she could swear on the Holy Bible that she had never had a sexual relationship with him. It wouldn't come up; her superiors frowned on supervisor-subordinate relationships, but they also understood that the kind of life they all led did not pave an easy road for normal, healthy relationships. The best they could hope for was to be married already or find someone within the unit or the bureau.  
  
She had to refocus, though. There was a girl missing, and they had to find her. Hilary Frederick, age fifteen, disappeared from her Manhattan home, reported missing by her parents when she didn't come home from a friend's house. The time was ticking, and there wasn't a damn thing Samantha could do about it. She wondered if Jack recognized how much it was killing her to not be a part of the team, to sit by as Danny and Martin and Vivian headed out to talk to people, find people, bring people home to their families and loved ones. Was this her punishment? Was this what she deserved for having entered into a relationship with him? Was this her own personalized version of the dog house?  
  
A paper airplane whizzed by her head, landing near hers-- not in the garbage can. She sighed heavily and turned, expecting to see Danny, expecting to reprimand him in her own, special way.  
  
But it wasn't Danny.  
  
It was Martin.  
  
Oh, went her heart. So this is what this feels like. He always caught her by surprise with how handsome he was, but in simple, understated ways. The dimples caught her off-guard, the mole by his eye, the way his eyes crinkled, and how he looked at everyone like they were equal. He could be so expressive, and she didn't think anyone ever noticed that. He seemed so sad sometimes, and she wondered if it had anything to do with his dad, or if it was something else.  
  
Oh, right, her brain told her. Speak. You need to speak now.  
  
He was leaning against the cubicle-like structure, just looking at her, smiling that half-smile she caught herself thinking about when she was falling asleep at night. How had everything changed so quickly? she asked herself. When did I change from calm, cool, collected to unable-to-speak teenybopper?  
  
Gunshot. She remembered. That was when.  
  
"Anything new?" she asked him, breaking the silence.  
  
He didn't reply, not at first, just looked at her, not scrutinizing, just looking. She wondered what it would be like to kiss him, if he was a soft kisser or a hard kisser, if he led with his tongue, if he would let her lead, and then she quickly dismissed the thought. "Are you--" he started, and then he shook his head.  
  
"What?" she asked, unable to stop from smiling.  
  
"I just--" he tried again, but he couldn't seem able to say it.  
  
"You just?" she echoed, gently teasing him, and she smiled more when he smiled back at her.  
  
"This is stupid," he protested, but she wasn't going to let him off. Too many things had gone unsaid, and she wasn't going to let them go unsaid. If he had something to say then, by God, she was going to make him say it.  
  
"Come on," she prodded again, and he sighed and looked away for a minute.  
  
"I was just wondering . . . you and Danny?" he asked, and the last three words, the 'you and Danny', were contemptuous, disbelieving, almost . . . jealous? Her heart trilled at the idea.  
  
She laughed, and it felt good to hear her own laughter. It was the carpooling to work, the late nights when they would go home together. If she hadn't known better, she would have suspected something, too. But the truth of it was that it was Danny.  
  
And not Martin.  
  
As soon as she started laughing, he began to smile, out of relief. That's what it was, she realized. Relief. And then maybe, she realized, that window of opportunity might be closed, but there might be a door opened somewhere.  
  
"What, are you jealous?" she asked him, half-teasing and half needing to know the answer, for her own sanity. She needed to know because she needed to be able to tell him that all she could think about while she was inside that bookstore with Barry Mashburn was that she didn't want to die not knowing if she had a chance with Martin Fitzgerald. But then she had thrown away that thought, because it was childish and idealistic, two things that Samantha Spade once was but no longer could claim to be.  
  
"I--" he started after an infinity of pauses, and then the phone rang.  
  
Don't answer it, she willed him, knowing perfectly well how selfish of a thought that was. He answered it, the black phone on one of the desks, and she turned back to staring at the dry erase board. Anything he might have been willing to admit while in the somber quiet of the office was gone, lost to the rattling noises of the outside world.  
  
*  
  
All she had wanted to do was pick up another pair of jeans and some clean underwear. That had been her purest intention. They had lost the missing girl. She had been found in a dumpster, raped and murdered. Finding the perpetrator of that crime was the job of another team. The Missing Persons Unit didn't deal with dead bodies, not if they could help it.  
  
It was always hard losing someone. Even if it was just a picture on a dry erase board.  
  
She took the elevator up to her apartment, still hobbling a little on her wounded leg, and she went to the door of her apartment. She didn't notice anything was off, which was her first sign that she was letting her head get away from her.  
  
She opened the door and let it slide open along the hardwood floor. It took her a minute before she fully analyzed the damage to the interior of her apartment. She bit her tongue so hard she tasted the coppery bitterness of her own blood; it was better than crying out. Couch cushions were upturned, pots pulled out of cabinets, rugs moved aside. Her kitchen table was overturned, and she walked slowly through her apartment, careful not to touch anything. Fingerprints could always be found.  
  
She found it difficult to breathe. Her chest was incredibly tight, and somewhere in the back of her head, she wondered if she was hyperventilating. Or having a heart attack. She couldn't think clearly. Someone had come into her apartment and done all of this.  
  
She walked back along the wooden floor, her bad leg dragging slightly, and she went to her bedroom. Her hands faltered on the bedroom doorframe. Every drawer of her chest of drawers had been pulled out, dumped out, sheets and comforter pulled off of the bed, and in the middle of the uncovered mattress, there was another piece of paper.  
  
She didn't even look at it. She couldn't. She sank to the floor, her leg folding painfully underneath her, and she reached for her cellphone inside her jacket pocket. With shaking fingers, barely able to hold herself together, breathing heavily, she dialed Danny's number.  
  
It rang and rang and he didn't answer. The cold, creeping, empty feeling in her chest began to grow, ravaging all of her senses of control. And then, without even thinking about it, she dialed Martin's number, hoping against dying hope that he would answer.  
  
Four, five rings went by with no answer. She could fell the tears nearing her eyes, and then there was a click. "Martin Fitzgerald," came his voice over the line, and the tightness in her chest loosened, just the tiniest of fractions, and she found she could breathe a tiny bit better.  
  
"Martin?" she echoed.  
  
"Samantha?" he asked. "Is that you?"  
  
"I need-- I need your help," she said to him, but that didn't even begin to cover it. "I need-- I need someone."  
  
"I'm coming right now," he told her, and there was a click and he was gone.  
  
*  
  
To be continued . . . 


	4. 4

Author's Note: Sorry about the wait, everyone! There was a family emergency, so I was out of town with limited e-mail access. Thanks so much to all of those who sent me very nice e-mails. Here is the latest chapter, so enjoy! ;-) And no worries; it'll all be happy in the end.  
  
Elysium Chapter Four  
  
It seemed like it took forever for him to get there, but she knew it must have only been a couple of minutes, just maybe ten for him to get from his apartment to hers. He had taken her home one night a while back, and that was how he knew where she lived. They had been innocent then, once upon a time. She wasn't sure how to be naive and innocent any more. That was what came with realization.  
  
She sat outside her apartment door, her knees pulled to her chest. In that position, no one could get to her. At least, that was the illusion she had. She wasn't scared; she didn't know how to be.  
  
But Martin was coming.  
  
She could hear the door open to the stairway, the darkness of night muffling the sound. Could it be him? Her heart began to pound at the thought of it. She heard the pounding of feet against the stairs, and there was another thought that invaded the sanctity of her mind-- what if it was someone else? The someone who had entered her home, violated her sense of space?  
  
She hadn't picked up her gun since she had been shot with it. If it was someone coming for her, she was unarmed, still injured. Vulnerable. That was how he would want her, anyway.  
  
"Sam?!" she heard.  
  
Martin, her brain cried out, and she struggled to stand as he came around the corner of the hallway. He stopped as he saw her, and she tried to support herself against the doorframe, but her own tired weight was too much for her. She watched him as he came to her, she clinging to the doorknob, he looking tired and weak. He scooped her half into his arms, and she could feel his muscles threading underneath his skin. "Sam, what happened?" he asked her, his voice sounding ragged and hoarse.  
  
"I think I have a stalker," she told him, her own voice mirroring hers. She tried to smile at him, but the smile fell loosely on her lips. His brown eyes looked into hers steadily, watching her, trying to glean what afflicted her, but not even she could have answered that.  
  
"Come on," he said, cupping his left hand underneath her left elbow and supporting her weight with his right arm. "I'm taking you to my place."  
  
*  
  
A visit to the police station and a pint of ice cream later, Samantha Spade was feeling a little more like herself than she had felt in weeks. There was something incredibly natural about being with Martin, something that simply fit between them. He had given her his college sweatshirt, too big for her, but it enclosed her, encompassed her, almost as though his arms were around her.  
  
He was worried about her; she could tell that much. He kept looking up from her from the late-night dinner he was making, just subtle glances, but she could see him in the reflection of the TV screen. With Martin, she could almost forget about it all. Almost, but not quite.  
  
There was the fact that just being around him reminded her of Jack. It wasn't in negative ways, though, which surprised her. She remembered the times when Jack would say something and she and Martin would share looks across the table, tiny inside jokes that they never voiced, because they could just look at each other and that was that. She was always amazed at how well they could communicate without even saying a word.  
  
God, Sam, her inner-voice chided. What is wrong with you? You're not in love with him, are you?  
  
Seated on his long leather couch, he behind her stirring spaghetti, she glanced at the television screen, refocused her eyes so she could see his reflection, the way his muscles played underneath his gray t-shirt, the way he pursed his lips, the way his eyes crunched when he smiled, when she smiled at him. No, she told her inner-voice. I don't think I'm in love with him.  
  
I don't think I know what love is, she realized. I don't think I understand, really.  
  
"Do you want to eat?" he asked her, his voice disturbing her out of her own silent musings.  
  
"I could eat," she told him, and she leaned forward and clicked the television off. She tried to get up off of the couch, but his voice halted her.  
  
"No, no, no," he said. "I'm coming to you." She watched him in the now- darkened television monitor, and she smiled at his concern for her. He came around the couch and placed a plate laden with spaghetti noodles and a rich red sauce on the coffee table where her foot was perched.  
  
There was a silence that hung in the air; it was the inevitable unspoken. She thought about how easy it would be to just lean over and kiss him. She also thought about how incredibly easy it would be for him to just reject her.  
  
Oh, grow up, her inner-voice told her. How old are you? How many relationships have you been in? You were married, Sam! How is this any different?  
  
And that, she told her inner-voice, is the question, isn't it?  
  
"Thank you for coming to the police station with me," she said to him after a moment. She could smell the spaghetti sauce in the air, rich and wonderful, mixed with the smell of his after shave. It was late, she was tired, but fear had made her adrenaline rise. And that was what was keeping her awake and alert.  
  
He smiled as though a little surprised that she had even thanked him for it, as though it was nothing whatsoever. "Sam--" he started, and then he stopped again.  
  
"What?" she prodded him, but he just shook his head.  
  
"I'm worried about you," he finally said, putting his elbow up on the back of the couch, turning to look at her. "You just seem a little . . . disconnected."  
  
"A lot has been going on," she answered quietly, looking ahead at the television. She could see both of their reflections, her in his sweatshirt, covered by an afghan, spaghetti in front of her, him in jeans and a t-shirt, looking tired, rumpled, but still incredibly handsome.  
  
"Yeah," he replied, and then there was a silence. "A lot has been going on."  
  
She glanced at him and smiled, her hair falling into her eyes. His hand twitched, and for a second, he looked like he was going to make a move to brush her hair out of her line of sight. He also looked like he was forcing himself not to do that.  
  
How much have we forced ourselves to do just because we were afraid, she wondered. She knew better than most how incredibly immobilizing fear could be.  
  
"Is . . . is this why you and Danny--?" he asked.  
  
"Yeah," she answered quietly. "Yup. No me and Danny. Funny idea, but not happening."  
  
"And Jack?" he asked, and the two words hung in the air, waiting for her to pick them out and hand them back to him in her own form.  
  
"And Jack . . . was something that happened and it's not going to happen any more."  
  
"Mmhmm," he responded gutturally, as though thinking about something else. She glanced at him again and he was looking away from her, intent on something she couldn't see.  
  
"Are you going to eat your spaghetti?" he finally asked her, and she looked down at the plate.  
  
"I think I should get off of your expensive leather couch first."  
  
"No, you're eating here."  
  
"Martin--"  
  
"I don't want you getting up."  
  
"But--"  
  
"No."  
  
"And your couch--"  
  
Then she watched, frozen, as he picked up the plate of spaghetti, took a handful of the noodles and the tomato sauce in his own bare hand and then put it directly onto the black leather of the couch. "Samantha," he said to her, a grin on his face, "the wonderful thing about leather is that it is so easy to clean. And tomato sauce will wash out of almost anything."  
  
He lifted his hand up and held it out for her to see, palm up. A stray noodle still lingered there, languishing in the sauce, and he took his hand and rubbed it along the sweatshirt she was wearing, wiping his hand almost clean. She cried out, laughing, and he said, "You see?"  
  
"Oh, I see," she replied to him, and she leaned forward to the plate of spaghetti and put her own hand in and scooped up a handful of noodles and sauce and delivered it promptly into the lap of his jeans. "I see very well," she told him, unable to suppress the grin.  
  
"Is that how we're going to play it?" Martin asked her, matching her grin with one of his own. She felt her own heart fluttering, pounding in her chest, a reflection of the way he looked at her, at how she felt around him.  
  
She didn't know she could feel like this. She always thought it was supposed to be angry and angsty. It was always supposed to be messy. And this was terrifying, but it was so incredibly natural to her.  
  
Like breathing.  
  
He reached for her, the entire plate of spaghetti poised to attack, and she shot her arm out, knocking it out of his hands, and it went flying into the couch, the spaghetti straight down, spreading all over the place. He looked back at it, an expression of mock-surprise on his face as he looked back at her. "You are not getting away with that," he said to her, and he half-tackled her.  
  
What hit her was a realization that even in his playfulness he hadn't forgotten about her leg, and he was still exquisitely gentle with it, careful to cradle her fall as they both hit the ground, she on top of him. He didn't need to ask if she was okay, she realized, because he had ensured that she was.  
  
The little things took her breath away.  
  
They were only inches apart, and she had seen so many movies where she would have known what would follow after this. He supported her entirely, his elbows pressed into the hardwood floor, and their eyes met, brown and brown, both pairs expectant, excited, cautious, happy, and incredibly terrified.  
  
Terrified. She was terrified. She was so incredibly scared because she recognized how much she had to lose if she screwed this up. Her blond hair fell out from behind her ear and almost into his face, and with his left hand, he gently pushed it back behind her ear. The feeling of his pads of his fingers against her skin sent the obligatory shivers down her spine.  
  
She had never experienced that to her. It was all new. She felt new, not like someone's used sheets. Martin made her feel as though she was sixteen again, fresh, young, inexperienced. No one had jaded her yet, not when she was sixteen.  
  
She watched him lick his lips and she felt her own tongue dart out and wet her own lips. One of his hands moved almost absently up to the small of her back, his fingers splayed against the entirety of her lower back. It was an almost possessive gesture in nature.  
  
She opened her mouth to say something, but her inner-voice stopped her. For once, it had valid advice. Don't ruin the moment, Sam, it told her.  
  
That's what it was-- a moment, stolen between two people. But it wasn't like her and Jack, whose relationship had been nothing but stolen moments. Their time together had been stolen, stolen from their jobs, their friends, Jack's wife. But with Martin she felt like they were claimed moments-- and not stolen. She was just picking up the dress she had dropped off at the tailor's a year ago and forgotten about, but how that she had gone back, she realized that the dress was perfect, fit in all the right places, complimented her.  
  
Martin complemented her. He fit in all of the right places.  
  
And he kissed her. It was surprising at first, not because she hadn't been expecting it, but because he did it so quickly that she almost missed it. Her eyes had been closed, a habitual move, but she opened him when the all- too-brief contact ended, and she looked at him. His eyes were expectant, his mouth slightly open, poised as if to say, 'Is this okay?'  
  
Are you kidding?! she wanted to scream at him.  
  
She was the one who kissed him the second time. She just leaned into him and his own mouth rose to meet hers. She was surprised, constantly surprised by him, by how good of a kisser he was, by how quickly she felt she knew his mouth, by how warm his lips were, by how soft they were, by how he pulled her into him, pressing his hand into her back.  
  
She couldn't say that it was everything she had imagined it to be, because she couldn't have imagined that it would be like this. And what made it so incredibly pure, so absolutely real, was that his heart was beating as fast as hers was, and his hands were shaking, and she realized he was as scared as she was by the whole situation.  
  
But then the phone rang.  
  
And she pulled back.  
  
That was what always happened with her and Jack.  
  
She pulled back, her face flushed, and she sat up and pulled away from him. He rubbed his face, and he got up to answer the phone.  
  
She watched him, and her inner-voice said, Looks like you're in too deep now, Sam.  
  
Yup, she told her inner-voice. Looks like.  
  
To be continued . . . 


	5. 5

I'm so sorry, everyone! When the muse is dead, it's dead! It's so hard to write in the summer, because reruns give me no inspiration. Thank you all for your patience. *bg*  
  
Elysium  
  
Chapter Five  
  
The phone call had been from Jack. Martin had glanced across his apartment at her, and breathed the name, "Jack," as soon as he answered the phone. The name came like a shot in the still anxiety of Martin's apartment, as though just the mere mention of him changed everything between Samantha and Martin.  
  
When it didn't. It couldn't.  
  
She was just starting to breathe again after so much time of being suffocated by the lies and the anxieties and the whispers and the deceits. She had just caught her breath, grabbed it out of the air where it had waited placidly for her to reclaim it.  
  
But they had obligations, to their boss, to their team, to their jobs, to the people who were missing. It was always about obligation, denying feelings out of obligation until they withered out of neglect. It was always about denial, too. They had become slaves, mindless, faceless, simply going through the motions of a job they loved but could not exist in.  
  
It's not fair, her mind screamed at her, petulant, childlike, furious at the interruption.  
  
But what would have happened if Jack hadn't called? If there hadn't been a phone call to stop them? How far might it have gone? How might they have destroyed what could be if Jack hadn't called?  
  
She watched him from across the room, studied his features, tried to read him as he talked on the phone with Jack. She thought of the fear running rampant in her veins, fear that made her dizzy, pain that made her anxious. She thought of Danny, and she wondered where he had been. She thought of a lot, just watching Martin. How long could she be an audience member? How long could she be a third party before being asked to join?  
  
Martin hung up the phone quietly and then he turned to look at her, and she began to understand what people meant when they said that some silences were deafening. Martin looked like he had gotten a swift kick to the stomach. He was pale, his face tight and his jaw even tighter.  
  
"That was Jack," Martin said softly, as though she hadn't known. She struggled to stand, because she knew what his tone of voice meant. It meant it was time to get to work.  
  
"We got one?" she asked quietly.  
  
"We got one," Martin echoed, nodding slowly. "We got one," he said again.  
  
"What is it?" she asked.  
  
He looked at her, blinking. "It's Jack's wife. She's missing."  
  
*  
  
Marie Malone  
  
Missing: Four Hours  
  
The office felt strange without Jack, but they all understood why he had been pulled from the case. Vivian had been appointed acting supervisor, and Samantha had pulled herself in. She wasn't going to let this one pass her by. Jack had asked them specifically for help, and wasn't about to let him down. She couldn't let him down. They had to find Marie, no matter what it meant.  
  
Martin had begun to watch her very closely, watching and waiting, as though looking for some sort of sign. Eric had been brought in as well to round out the case. The official word was suspected kidnapping, someone trying to get back at Jack for something or another.  
  
But other than that, they were at a loss. Nobody ever addressed the issue of what to do when they didn't know where to start. There were questions that hung loosely in the air over everyone's heads, and they all blinked at each other from across the table, waiting for something, anything. Somebody had to have a bright idea sooner or later.  
  
The time just ticked on, minute after minute. Time was valuable, but so was government money, and they couldn't just go galavanting around New York, looking for something, anything. Cold coffee sat in front of Samantha's hand, just inches from her cold fingers.  
  
There were things that nobody wanted to say.  
  
"What if--" Martin started, breaking the silence that had grown between Samantha, Danny, Eric, and Martin. "What if she jsut . . . left?"  
  
That was one of the things nobdoy wanted to say.  
  
"She has children," Samantha pointed out mildly. "Two daughters. She wouldn't just leave."  
  
"What if it became too much?" Martin asked, looking at her pointedly. And she didn't know what to say to taht. She looked at the three men around the table, one her ex-boyfriend, one her best friend, and the third . . . something else all together.  
  
"You know what we always say," Danny said after a beat. Three heads turned to look at him, and his hands played with the piece of paper in front of him, folding it, tearing it. Samantha could hear Vivian on the phone in Jack's office. What they needed now was information. "Last person to see them is usually responsible."  
  
If silence could have been cacophonous, that would have been how Samantha would have described the dullness that followed Danny's statement.  
  
"And why would Jack have done anything with his wife?" Eric asked Danny, watching Samantha.  
  
Danny's eyes turned to look at her as well, and she wasn't comfortable with the accusations, with what they were saying. "Hey--" Martin started. "Leave her alone. Samantha doesn't have anything to do with this."  
  
"We have to look at all the possibilities here," Eric said, his tone immediately harsher as he addressed Martin. "We have to get her back."  
  
"Yeah, but leave Samantha out of it."  
  
Samantha watched Martin, and she chewed at her lip. They all knew better than to suspect Jack. It was nerves, it was anxiety, it was fear talking. The fear just manifested itself in bitter ways. "Guys--" she said, trying to be the omnipresent Voice of Reason. "This isn't helping anything."  
  
With Martin beside her, she thought about reaching for his hand udnerneath the table, reaching for it and clasping it in her own. Without their fearless leader, where were they now?  
  
"Okay, everyone," they heard as Vivian set down the phone and came out of Jack's office. The older woman looked tired, worn around the edges. That was how they all looked. Sometimes it was strange how little it took to exhaust them all. "We've got a lead. Martin, Samantha, we have a surveillance camera in a store on 57th that puts her there two hours ago. Eric, Danny, go back to Jack's house and talk to the neighbors. We need to get something more."  
  
And so that was what it took-- one of their own to be taken out of the equation before someone would let her participate again.  
  
As they started to stand up, there was one more question hanging in the air, bitter and angry, that only Danny was brave enough to ask. "What if we can't do it without Jack?" he asked.  
  
Nobody wanted to answer that.  
  
*  
  
Marie Malone  
  
Missing: Six Hours  
  
It was all about watching. She had to constantly be watching, always watching and always listening. She had to make people believe that she believed them implicitly while always always watching for signs that they were lying. It was about always asking 'why' while not letting that question overcome the 'where'.  
  
The store was a small boutique, out of the way yet still high-end, expensive, exclusive. What had Marie Malone been doing there? The woman was simple, understated, yet sophisticated. She was not going to be caught in a trendy New York boutique.  
  
Martin watched the surveillance tape once through with the manager of the store as Samantha walked around, fingering blouses and skirts, trying to understand what Marie Malone had been doing there. In some way, she thought she could understand the woman. They had a lot in common, more than either of them wanted to admit.  
  
"Marie Malone," the man said, and he handed Martin a credit card slip. "See, Marie Malone."  
  
Samantha let go of a sleeve of a shirt and walked over to them, through the open door of the back office, and Martin turned to look at her. She took the credit card slip from him; it was Marie Malone's credit card, without a doubt. There was something off about it, though.  
  
"Take a look at this," Martin said, pointing to the screen. He told the man to rewind it, and the man cued up the tape again and pressed play. All three of them watched the dark-haired woman on the screen, watched her with unnatural interest. "Is there something weird about this to you?"  
  
Samantha moved closer to the screen, and Martin put an unconscious hand on the small of her back, and she felt the warmth creep up from his fingertips into her skin. It was so natural, so lacking cunning. It was like breathing.  
  
She wondered, vaguely, if it had been like this between Jack and Marie-- before. Jack and Marie were proof positive that good things could go horribly wrong, that sometimes love was not enough to keep two people together. She knew that first-hand. Once upon a time, she had thought herself in love. In retrospect, she realized that she hadn't been. Only thought.  
  
She watched the dark-haired woman on the screen, and she realized something at the same time Martin did. She turned to look at him, and he nodded. "She's wearing a wig," he said. "That's not Marie."  
  
*  
  
Marie Malone  
  
Missing: Six and a half hours  
  
She stumbled in the elevator, almost fainted, almost collapsed. It was a mixture of things-- fear, anxiety, pain. She didn't want to tell Jack that some woman was impersonating his wife and that that woman had his wife's credit card. She didn't want to be involved in this case; she wanted to go home and sink into a bathtub and forget about it all, let the bubbles drown away her troubles.  
  
That would have been easiest.  
  
She reached out for the elevator wall, uneven on her injured leg, and Martin caught her, and she sank into him, not close to tears, for once not close to crying. The pain in her leg had begun to be psychosomatic; she was causing it, because she expected it to hurt.  
  
"Samantha," Martin half-cried, folding her into his arms. Together, they sank to the cool floor of the elevator, her leg simply not going to hold her up any longer.  
  
"I'm okay," she told him. "I'm okay," she whispered. She didn't know how much she believed it, how much any one would believe it, how much she would believe it if she were Martin. When along the way had she become this weak person?  
  
Bullet. Gunshot. That was right. She had to keep reminding herself. It had become her scapegoat, but she felt entitled to use it as such.  
  
She pulled herself up, pressing her back against the cold elevator wall, her leg stretched out in front of her, and Martin moved across the elevator so that he was facing her, and in the confined space, they said nothing, simply looked at each other, simply gazed into the other's eyes. It was stolen time.  
  
They didn't need to steal time. Not Samantha and Martin. They could have all the time they needed.  
  
She smiled, and he smiled back at her, and as the elevator stopped and the doors slid open, her smile widened into a grin, and his smile echoed her movement.  
  
He stood up first, and he held out a hand for her to take, and he helped her up, pulled her to him, pulled her into him so that she was pressed up against his chest, his arm wrapped around her waist. He didn't care who in the office saw, just didn't care, and as she looked at him, she realized she didn't care either.  
  
"After we find Marie," he said, taking his free hand and stroking her cheekbone, her jawline, the pads of his fingers sending cliched chills down her spine, "I'm taking you out. For real."  
  
Pushing herself up onto the toes of her good foot, she whispered in his ear, "I'd like that."  
  
If there was an after. If they found Marie.  
  
To be continued . . . 


End file.
